The voices of at least 36 victims of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Centre in New York have been identified on tapes of emergency calls and radio transmissions from that morning.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the twin towers, was to release transcripts of the tapes today after a judge ruled the agency isbound to an agreement it made last month with The New York Times.
The victims who identified themselves on the tapes or whose voices were recognised by co-workers include 19 Port Authority police officers, 14 civilianPort Authority workers and three people who did not work for the agency.
The Port Authority lost 37 police officers and 38 civilian employees in theattack.
The agency had argued that it would be insensitive to victims' families torelease the tapes to the media. The Port Authority later agreed to releasetranscripts of the tapes, but then decided that the transcripts had the sameimpact as the recordings.
Spokesman Mr Greg Trevor said the agency's greatest fear was that a family member would recognise the voice of a loved one who died in the attack in a media report.
The transcripts include communications between Port Authority police officersand department employees, along with calls between command centres at the tradecentre and several sites in New Jersey.
"You can really see why and how the evacuation of the complex was sosuccessful," said Port Authority manager Ms Catherine Pavelec.
A survivor of the attacks, she is overseeing the transcription process."People are on their game, professional, no panic," she said. "They'rethere to do a job, and they do it."
She said the tapes give "a very real sense of how many people needed help andhow short a period of time we had to help them."